Tony Pond

INTRODUCTION

Tony Pond (23 November 1945 ~ 7 February 2002) was a British rally driver. Pond is better known for his good performances on the national level, some of which turned into eight international victories and sixteen podiums when the calendars overlapped with the European Rally Championship (ERC), prominently in the 1970s and early 1980s. Pond would however achieve less success on the World Rally Championship (WRC) level, attaining but two podiums in his career: his most famous being a third place at the 1985 Lombard RAC Rally while driving a MG Metro 6R4.

Tony Pond’s first outings in a rally car were on the then regular (in the early ’60s) Saturday night road rallies in the home counties around London, driving a Mini Cooper S. Using the same car, he also became successful at autocross – the practice of maneuvering the car against the clock around a series of cones.

He then prepared a Lotus Cortina for an attempt on the Lombard RAC Round Britain Rally, and was running in the top twenty when a visit to a ditch in icy conditions put an end to the outing.

At that time, Ford had participated in the Mexico Rally Championship, and Pond persuaded the local Ford dealer in his home town, Norman Reeves of Uxbridge, to prepare and supply a car for the Championship. He finished second overall, the reward for which was a drive in a works supported Escort RS1600 on the Scottish International Rally. He finished in the top ten, which was enough incentive for Norman Reeves to prepare and supply him with an ex-factory Escort RS1600 for a whole season.

Using this car, he was a regular top ten finisher in the British Rally Championship, competing against and beating the likes of Jimmy McRae (Colin’s father) and Russell Brookes, culminating in a third place on the Welsh International Rally in 1973, beating Tony Fall into fourth place. At that time, Fall was competitions manager for the Dealer Opel Team (DOT), and the offer of a works supported drive was not long in coming.

Unfortunately, although DOT and Pond were successful with the 2 litre Opel Kadett, General Motors had taken the decision to stop selling Opels in the UK and concentrate on the Vauxhall brand, and so DOT was disbanded. However he was almost immediately approached by British Leyland to take on the venerable Triumph TR7. 1976 until 1978, saw him in the Triumph then in 1979 he championed a Talbot Sunbeam Lotus before returning to the TR7 in 1980, completing a number of outings for the British Leyland factory team.

Around 1979-1982, he also often visited South Africa on weekends to pilot the factory-entered Datsun Stanza, with navigator Richard Leeke, in the SA National Rally Championship as Datsun’s (later Nissan SA) number 1 driver. In 1981 he won the Radio 5 Rally outright against stiff competition like Geoff Mortimer in a Chevrolet Chevair and Jan Hettema, a double-Springbok, in aToyota Corolla.

1981 through to the end of 1984 had Pond competing with varying success in a varied selection of cars, including the Datsun Violet, Vauxhall Chevette HSR, Nissan Violet and the Nissan 240RS. For 1985, Pond was recruited by the Austin Rover dealer team to drive the Group B MG Metro 6R4. He stayed with the Austin Rover team until the end of 1986 when the Group B class was cancelled.